Regret Message
by Feenie13
Summary: Flynn and Isabeau discover a beach one day. Neutral Route spoilers for SMT IV.
Please forgive me for this fic. I had no idea what the thought process for this was, but somehow I ended up with this. Whoops. The song is purposely misunderstood in this fic.

* * *

Flynn had never been to a beach before in his life. Then again, considering Mikado had been nowhere near one, he doubted he would have heard of a beach before today.

Isabeau had discovered it, and was exploring it, not quite sure what she expected.

"It's a quiet place. There's no one here…" she noticed. Flynn simply nodded. After all the fighting with the demons, a quiet place was nice. He made a mental note to come back here once in a while, perhaps with Isabeau. After their...'adventure', one could call it, this was a well-deserved place to come to every now and then.

—

It was a few days later when the two overheard someone whistling a song as they were chatting with K. It was a rather melancholic tune, from what Flynn heard. Isabeau asked the one whistling, "Pardon me, but what is that song you're whistling?"

"Hm? Oh, it's called Regret Message. It's about someone putting a message in a bottle and sending it floating out to sea for someone who died."

"Someone who died? That sounds rather interesting," Isabeau noted.

Flynn stopped paying attention when the two began to talk more. He was starting to get an idea for something.

—

Ever since the two had made Tokyo their residence, they had been…convinced to live with Hugo until they had enough money for a place of their own. Flynn and Isabeau weren't too happy, but it was better than nothing. Hugo usually didn't sleep until some time after midnight, Isabeau was normally out around 10 PM, and Flynn stayed up until 1 AM, the Gauntlet holder finding it harder to sleep at a normal time than the others.

He was grateful that he didn't sleep easy tonight.

Flynn was writing a letter, guessing the two others would find him odd for what he planned to do.

 _Dear Issachar, Jonathan and Walter:_

 _First off…I would like to apologize for a good deal of what has happened._

 _Issachar: I'm sorry you didn't become a Samurai and that I slayed you when you were a demon. The Gauntlet Rite was out of our control, and yet…if things had been different, I wish you were the one to have become a Samurai, not me. I know that it would mean you might have had to kill me, but you were stronger than I am. You were better at pretty much…everything, really, compared to me. You said it yourself: I couldn't even bait a fishhook._

 _Jonathan and Walter: I'm sorry for not following either of you. I know both of you wanted a different world than what we had been dealt with. I know both of you sacrificed yourselves to become stronger, to get the world you desired…but your ideals clashed. I, for lack of a better term, hesitated to follow either of you. I found a path where I thought we could all survive, but in the end…I killed both of you by my own hands. I will not deny that now or ever._

Flynn paused when he thought he heard someone move. Perhaps it was just Hugo turning in his sleep?

 _If I could have, I would have begged both of you to reconsider your paths. That demon who swayed you, Walter, and that angel, Jonathan…I would have tried to stop them before they could convince you to join them. I regret not doing so. I failed to act and keep both of you from joining them. Please forgive me…I didn't think I would be forced to draw my blade against either of you._

"Flynn?"

The dark-haired young man jumped at Isabeau's voice, and he turned to look at her. She seemed to have just waken up, a confused expression on her face as she stood in the doorway of Flynn's room.

"Isabeau? You're still awake?"

"Yes. I was thinking over that song…I suppose you're attempting to do what happened in that song?"

Flynn nodded.

"I regret having killed them. I thought if I could do this, I'd…I'd be fine."

Isabeau stood in the doorway, quiet for a few moments before sitting next to him.

"Mind if I add something?"

"Go ahead."

She wrote down something before getting up and leaving.

"Good night."

"Good night."

Flynn looked at the paper.

 _The three of you will be remembered for as long as we live._

He continued to write.

 _Again…please forgive us. Tokyo is a great place…I wish all of you had lived to see it. We lost Mikado, but we found a much better place in the end._

 _—_ _Flynn_

—

The following morning, just before dawn, Flynn and Isabeau approached the beach, Flynn's letter in a glass bottle.

"This feels rather silly…" Isabeau commented.

"I know, but I want to do it. Sorry," Flynn apologized, but she just shook her head.

"Do what you have to."

He nodded as he approached the water and set the bottle in it, watching it flow out to the ocean.

"…Isabeau?"

"Yes?"

"Do you think that I could have stood a chance at keeping them both with me?"

"…I'm not sure. Time will only tell. in the meantime, we should keep making the world better. Issachar's last words were for you to change the world, and we can keep doing that until our last breath."

Flynn nodded and began heading away from the beach.

"Come on, let's go back."

"Right."


End file.
